Think Twice Before You Go
by eosdawnaurora
Summary: Jet doesn't want Faye to leave, but saying as much isn't easy. Written for the NotPrimeTime 2014 exchange.


Jet hears Faye before he sees her, as he enters the hangar where he's been working on the damage to her ship. She's listening to jazz on her cockpit radio. Something with a soft moody piano, and vocals in a language he doesn't understand, French maybe.

When he looks in, Faye turns her head, enough that he can see the glint of her eyes. She's sprawled, limp and lethargic, over the dash of the _Redtail_, still wearing the tank top and silk shorts she usually sleeps in. She also wears the dispassionate expression of a person who's lost everything that mattered to them, and has to grit their teeth and go on living.

Spike used to pull that face sometimes. It doesn't fit on her though. Jet expects her to stay angry, to keep wailing away at whatever it is in the world that tries to keep her down. Faye's a fighter, and he's never doubted it for a second. This is why he doubts her grim mood is all about Spike, but rather getting twenty years of memories dumped back into her head. It had to be difficult to process all of that at once—remembering family and friends, her home and her world, remembering them all and having to lose them again.

So far, he's let her be, leaving food out for her to take back to her cabin, like she's some sort of stray cat hiding in the recesses if the ship. This is the first time in weeks, since Spike did his suicide run into the Red Dragon headquarters that she's deliberately come into one of Jet's spaces. He sighs, though, knowing if she came here, she only has one thing on her mind.

"If you want to leave, it's wishful thinking. The repairs aren't even close to done, won't be 'til I can get the rest of the parts," he says, turning away, making a circuit of the ship. He makes a list of tools in his head—the plasma torch, the rivet remover, a crowbar for the stubborn bits. The left side of her ship is a disaster, and there's going to be little he can salvage.

"How long?" she asks, her voice as listless as the rest of her body.

"It'll be a while—we don't exactly have the cash on hand, unless you've got a big pile of woolongs somewhere. I'm lucky I could scrounge enough to get the _Bebop_ up and running again, after all of that." All of that being the Red Dragon syndicate trying to destroy his ship for their being associated with Spike.

"We're better off now though, right? He never really wanted to be here with us. Nothing but trouble," Faye says, but without conviction.

"Always trouble. Complained about my cooking, but then he liked to sample my bottle of Ganymede Special Label, when he could find where I hid it."

Like her, he'd only really gotten closer to Spike in recent days. He leans on the battered hull of her ship, and remembers how she'd made him let her fight to protect the _Bebop_ even though the _Redtail_ was handicapped. Quite a change from when they'd first met and she'd make them pay for her assistance, and she couldn't be trusted not to leave in the middle of the night with the contents of the safe.

"Such an idiot. Maybe you can go pour it on his grave."

"I just might. That hunk of rock I had his name carved onto was expensive. Gotta keep the weeds off of it."

Spike doesn't have any living relatives, if the records are correct, and had little of value to his name. All he's left behind is the _Swordfish_, which Jet has put into storage. When they visit Earth again, he'll see if Doohan wants it back.

"Maybe you shouldn't be drinking weed-killer. I'm not sure I can ever return. There's nothing on Mars I want to remember; nothing on Earth, either."

"You don't have to, but you should know by now that avoiding painful things never makes life easier," Jet says.

"Thanks for the sage advice, old man. Go tell that to that moron again, since that's why he's dead."

"Spike did what he had to do—and don't call me that. You're the one who was born in the twentieth century. I'm only thirty-six. You're what, eighty?" he counters, and runs his hand back over his bald scalp. He lost most of his hair in his twenties; even before then, people were already mistaking him for someone much older. Lately, his face matches the way he feels.

Talking about her age seems to spark something in her though, because she sits up with a scowl on her face, and turns towards him. "I'm seventy-seven—though it's rude to ask a woman that sort of thing. If you're worried about premature aging, you should stop smoking. Come to think of it, I should too, my mother would be appalled," she admits, touching her face, her eyes widening in surprise, as if there's another memory resurfacing in the back if her mind.

It's the most he's heard her say about her family, since she lied about being Romany. This has the ring of truth, if only because he thinks most mothers would be horrified at the sort of trouble she gets into.

"Heh, you seemed like such a nice kid on that old tape. It's a shame the people who thawed you out were so crooked. Your family couldn't have foreseen how the world was going to change when they had you put in cold sleep," he says.

Something about his tone puts Faye's hackles up, and she looks over at him sharply. "What do you know about it?"

"Enough to understand that you got a raw deal," he says, realizing they've never really talked like this, because of that lack of understanding—it didn't excuse her behavior, of course, but her past put it in context. If it weren't for the topic or the circumstances, being able to have a meaningful conversation would be a refreshing change.

"It's only a problem if the debt-collectors catch up with me. Are you going to turn me in?" she asks, looking up at him, her body shifting like she's a rabbit preparing to leap out of the cockpit to go hide.

"No plans to, but you're never going to be happy if you keep running," he says, and makes an attempt to hide the fact that he's moving back a little to give her more space, by turning to light a cigarette.

Indignant at first, Faye's expression shifts to one a bit more uncomfortable. Jet doesn't make any addendum about how in the past she's been a liar and a cheat, a thief and a moocher; that she owes him thousands of woolongs for various supplies and repairs, so she'd better not think about taking off. He very easily could have, and maybe in another time and place he would have, but this was not it.

"Happiness is such a fleeting thing. I used to be happy all the time, you know. Naive, but happy," she says, looking down at her hands, which are shaking.

"How so?"

"I was so spoiled—my family, they never let me see the awful parts of the world, they protected me. Too much, now that I look back on it. I had no debts to anyone. I wanted to be successful, because my family adored me and wanted me to have a good life. I loved them—the sort of love you don't even have to think about, it's just there. I thought I knew everything, what my future would hold, what I could expect. I had dear friends, a real sense of purpose.

"It's not fair. I want it all back, I want them back," she says, and her voice cracks.

Over the years, as a cop and as cowboy, Jet has witnessed plenty of real horror and goddamn tragedy. He tries to keep an emotional distance from it, compartment the worst of it to a place that lets him sleep at night, like closing a book. Not long ago, he realized that he hasn't been able to do that with her, turn her away, or tune her out. It's not about the money anymore, hasn't been for a while, and he's pretty sure she feels the same way.

"Sounds like a life worth missing," he says, glad she's not looking in his direction. He's not the expressive type, but lately, everything about her makes his heart ache, and he wants to pick her up and hold her. Lucky for him, she shifts the subject to something on which the books are entirely shut.

"And that's what gets me. Why out of all of them, do I miss him, too? Why do I even care about that crazy, no-good loser? He was born for a bad end." Tears form in her eyes, and she tries to blink them back.

"He was your comrade," he says, noticing that she still seems to be having trouble saying Spike's name.

"That idiot didn't want to be anyone's anything," she mutters, and wipes at her eyes. They both know this isn't true, and that Spike had some very ugly baggage that kept him from letting either of them in.

"So, did you love him?" he asks, uncertain in his gut if he really wants this particular curiosity answered. Faye likes to talk big about not needing anyone, that nothing good ever comes from trusting people, but somehow she always finds her way back to his ship. He likes to think that Spike wasn't the only reason she returned to the _Bebop_, again and again.

Her tears streak down. "I don't know. Does it matter? Even so, I wouldn't call it anything like that. You can't love someone who doesn't want to be loved."

"That's the truth," he says without thinking. From the way her jaw shifts and her shoulders tighten, he can tell she thinks he's talking about her. Maybe he is.

She sniffs, and wipes her face with the heels of her hands. "Jet, if you want, I'll leave right now. You should drop me off. I can take care of myself. I'll figure something out."

"Heh, since when are you interested in what I want? You've always done as you pleased, like it doesn't matter what I think about it. If I don't want you here. Really," he says, but she just lowers her eyelids at him.

"That was the best thing about Spike, he didn't want anything from me at all," she says.

Jet chuckles, and shakes his head at her. "I find that hard to believe, but it's not like he'd have ever said anything. It's no good to be human and not to want, to have no expectations from life. It means you're empty; you might as well be dead."

"Funny you should say that—"

"Look at it this way, the syndicate was picking off everyone he cared about. After Julia died, he could have just given up, and walked off, and never said a word to us, but he didn't. He knew if he let Vicious go on living, the bloodshed would get worse until he faced him. I wish he didn't feel like he had to do it alone, but that was his way of paying his debts. I don't hold it against him."

"Whatever. You can rationalize it however you want, I'm never going to forgive him."

"It doesn't matter if you forgive him or not, he's beyond that. If you're going to be mad at someone, get mad at me for dragging him to the casino where you first met us," he says, the corner of his mouth turning up, as he remembers simpler times.

He waits for her to snap out a smart reply, but Faye seems content to watch the smoke wind out from his cigarette, her eyes distant and unfocused. It's like he said exactly the wrong thing, and now she's sad again, for a variety of reasons which he will never know the whole of.

Jet drops the cigarette, and crushes out the butt on the floor with the toe of his boot—he'll clean it up later. Moving to stand in front of the hatch, he grips either side and leans into the cockpit, getting into her space in a way that she can't ignore.

"Listen, you want to know what I want? Here's something—take it or leave it," he says, not loud, but he's close to her.

"What's that then? Got another invoice for me?" she drawls, sounding apathetic, though she's holding the seat beneath her like she's bracing for impact.

"Well, there is that, but asking you to pay me back is like asking a shark to give back a fish—neither one is likely, no matter how gruff I am about it. It doesn't matter right now. I want a partner, Faye. Someone I can depend on to have my back. Someone who isn't going to run off and blow all of our dough on booze and horses the second she gets scared. It's that simple."

Faye blinks at him in surprise, like she expected him to say something completely different. Her shoulders relax and she sighs, and gives him one of her sly smiles. It's a relief to see, considering how unhappy she looked before.

"Wouldn't that be diving into the shark's mouth?" she says, as she turns in her seat to face him. He notices her bare feet, the nails painted in different colors—Ed's legacy.

He snorts. "You've got my offer, what's it going to be?"

"I know what happened to your last two partners, Jet."

"I attract troublesome people, it's true," he says, and holds his hand out for her to shake.

"You're a glutton for punishment," she replies, but takes it, her eyes widening as he pulls her to her feet.

"I'm not the only one," he says, grinning down at her, letting go as she steadies herself. "If you're feeling up to it, I think I've got a job for us."

"Where?" she asks, watching him, arms crossed as he turns away and opens a panel in the side of the _Redtail_, so he can start hooking up his diagnostics rig. He had actually meant to work on her ship, after all.

"Ganymede. We'll dock in an hour," he says.

"Your home sweet home?"

"I've already got a home."

"Here?"

"Yes, here along with you. Go get cleaned up. There's twelve million in it for us if we hurry. We shouldn't need the ships."

Jet gasps when a moment later, Faye surprises him by catching him on the right side with a brief hug. Just as quickly, she sprints out of the hangar, presumably to take his advice.

He grins to himself, and lights another cigarette. If they can nab that bounty head they'll have enough to live for a little while; after this most recent development, he's feeling a lot more positive about that possibility.


End file.
